Just days after hundreds crossed the Channel
Reform UK party and its leader Nigel Farage have announced a plan to deport 400,00 migrants if they secure power.
As per the latest announcement, which comes after 602 people on Saturday crossed the Channel on small boats, if they left country Reform UK would give migrants £1,000 each.
This move would cost no less than £400 million in taxpayer money, in addition to the flight costs.
If the party wins the next general election, it plans to review all successful asylum claims over the past five years, with anyone who is found to have entered illegally or overstayed their visa and subsequently claimed asylum to “have their status revoked and be deported”.
Before Reform UK take any action, however, it would have to overturn the Human Rights Act, which requires a stable Commons majority to get past legal hurdles.
The party could fall short by a single seat – leaving the scheme reliant on the Conservatives to pass, as per a recent poll by More in Common.
By operating five removal flights per day, Reform UK said it would aim to deport 188,000 illegal migrants a year.
“Reform will reverse the invasion of Britain. Anyone who broke into the country illegally, or came in on a visa and overstayed to claim asylum (which is almost all of them) will have their status revoked and be deported”, Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesman said.
“This is an addition to all those currently in Britain illegally”, he added.
Saturday was the second busiest day for crossings and brought the total number of arrivals in 2026 to more than 6,000.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said a Conservative government would deport illegal migrants “within a week of arrival”, in response to Reform UK’s announcement.
“The Conservatives have already proposed a detailed borders plan to pull out of the ECHR and completely ban asylum claims by illegal immigrants”, he said.
“The Conservatives’ ‘removals force’ will deport 150,000 immigrants each year with no right to be here. Reform is slowly catching up with our ideas, but without the detail that will ensure it works in practice”, he added.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat immigration and asylum spokesman, Will Forster, accused Reform of “churning out hostile, headline-grabbing” plans that will “do absolutely nothing to tackle our broken asylum system”.
“The backlog of cases is already sky high thanks to the mess the Conservatives left us in. Reviewing five years worth of asylum grants is an impractical farce that will just slow down the process even more”, he added.
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